Friday, April 03, 2009

Greed, is the one sin I knew from the beginning I could represent in a photograph. (Well, that and lust. Lust is pretty easy.) We've seen so many examples of it lately that it's hard not to see opportunities everywhere. But around here, this example was one of the most noteworthy. Actually, it's more noteworthy 165 miles from here in Charlotte where Wachovia has its headquarters.

It seems that one of the naughty-naughties perpetrated by this financial giant was selling a whole bunch of something called "auction rate securities" and then ceasing the auctions. Which left investors with no way to sell their shares, bonds, what have you. Basically Wachovia sold something like $8.5 billion worth of these instruments and then left investors holding the bag. Which may account for why they're now a wholly owned subsidiary of Wells Fargo.

But there's a little bit of justice here. Wachovia has been ordered to buy back all those securities and pay a half-million dollar fine for good measure. Somehow I doubt that the half-mil is going to hurt their feelings very much, but having to buy back all those assets might. But what do I know? Could this have been the plan all along?

What goes around, as they say...

It's this kind of thing that gave the bank the name "Walk-All-Over-Ya" when I was young.